This is a real life landmark in men’s fashion. The fact that he’s so tailored and flawless is a true testament to the evolution not only of menswear, but the men who care about it.http://lordashbury.com

I adore your posts from Joburg and from South Africa. Even though I am from Norway my heart belongs to South Africa – it is the most incredible place with the most fantastic people! Great shots of great personalities. Keep it up :) :)

African people use fashion with style.
Thanks for sharing this image with us.
If you do not know already know about it, have a look at the 80s phenomenon of “La Sappe” (société des ambienceurs parisiens) from Brazzaville and Kinshasa. (Garance should be able to help with the French translation).
a great post-colonial way to mic tradition with modernity.
Also, but this time in the USA of the 30s, the Zoot suits, which gave their name to the sad zoot suit riots.

I just love this picture! This young man is sylish, proud yet humble. Africa is a great place for fashion with a totally different take on body shapes, clothes, colours and cuts. In Congo, “Les Sappeurs” would also be wonderful for you to capture. Some of them are in Paris. Fashion is their religion!

I live and work in Johannesburg. I am a white guy, but let me tell you, the little I know about fashion I have learned from my black friends. They know how to pull a killer look, often on a shoe-string budget! The guy in your photo looks like a million dollars – he probably did not spend a $100. Keep up the great work!

This JB series is so moving to me on so many levels. Some may not know part of aparthied in 1986 ish and onward, was the banning of all publishing of all photos of anything/anyone in SA by any press anywhere,…. in hopes that the rest of the world wouldn’t see the truth.

WoW! Here we are now looking at joy, life and fashion in Soweto! I suspect Iam not alone in being moved to tears to see this beautiful photo of this elegant man so exquisitely dressed and styled. And to read his inspiring story and learn of the fantastic ‘Smarties”, and that they worship at the altar of Lino/Al Bazzar..like it’s down the road! Can’t imagine how thrilling it was for him to be photographed for “the Sartorialist”! Had to be pretty special for you too Scott.

My heart swells to read he is honoring Luca’s birthday with his hat band!
Not that it’s anyof my biz, but I think the seat of honor between Lino and Luca at the next Pitti l’uomo/Florence Sartorialist dinner….absolutely positively belongs to this elegant gentleman… The Magnificent Sartorialist, Kabelo, Smartie of Soweto!

Thank you so much,Energie, such an honor to be complimented by a South African! Those were very dark days indeed! I am a citizen of USA and lived in NYC at the time and was involved with several of SA’s highly esteemed writers, poets and other operatives that worked tirelessly bac k and forth between USA,the UN,and SA, and with top reporters bravely embedded in SA who tirelessly tried to keep the SA news on world front pages (under the atrocious ‘self editing’ bans), in order to bring to an long overdue the draconian aparthied system. When this group of tirless workers had gone back to SA, my very unofficial job was to manually cut out every artilce written about SA by the NY Times and other papers of note at the time (after the’ banning’..these articles as dictated by SA ‘self editing’ law were bereft of their powerful photos, and reportershad to be oh so careful) …and send them off to this devoted team in SA, so they could know what was truly happening in their own country! I can’t remember how long i did this, but it was small stuff compared to my friends work in SA.
So to see these gorgeous ‘day in the life” photos of creativity, freedom, joy and fashion on the world’s top fashion blog with such lightness …. and in Soweto and JB,no less, is unbelievably fantastic!!!!!!!!

Feel free to email Alyssa at Scott’s for my email if you would ever like to contact me.

Also,on this our democratic USA election day, I am reminded how important voting is and what a beautiful right and duty it is.

I’ve been googling those moving aerial photos of the first democratic SA election…which always brings me to tears. Thousands of SA’s happilly,gratefully and patiently waitng for hours/days in searing heat on miles of snaking lines in the fields…to vote!

Scott, thanks so much for insisting on going to Jozi and Soweto to capture this beautiful moving visual story of freedom, from the amazing country who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to enjoy freedom…. life…and fashion and style! RESPECT!

i live in johannesburg and know “The Smarties” personally… they are the most amazing creative group of guys with a real passion for what they do.
i just wanted to give you a bit of background on their name… here in south africa, we have a chocolate called smarties which are like M&M’s in the US. they are really colourful candy on the outside and chocolate on the inside. “The Smarties” see their clothing and style as colourful on the outside and brown on the inside… this is where they got their name from :).
keep up the amazing work and i really cant wait to see more on them…
and thanks for exposing south african fashion to the world.
xoxo

This is giving me great hope that, one day, the younger generations will understand how important it is to “dress.” To show your personality, your pride, your self respect.
Bravo to the Smarties ! (Great name.)

Some years ago I saw a Danish documentary about a group of South African men competing in style and elegance. It’s called ‘The Swenkas’ and I really like it. You can find the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uWRetsYJ34

This is one of yourbest posts! It proofs that you don’t just photograph models and fashionistas, you also find wonderfully inspiring creative people like The Smarties, in far away places like SA (my mom’s country!) and with small budgets for dressing up, wonderful!

love what these guys are doing , expressing themselves through fashion. what your doing is really great and its about time we support locally produced products and stop enriching foreign countries while our country remain poorer